Cuban missile crisis myth constrains today's diplomatic standoffs

This post has been corrected.

Fifty years after the superpowers were poised to annihilate each other over nuclear missiles sent to Cuba, the myth prevails that President Kennedy forced Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to back down by threatening to unleash nuclear war.

It took three decades after October 1962, when the world hovered on the brink of a cataclysm, before  documents were declassified that disclosed the back-channel diplomacy and compromise that led to peaceful resolution of the Cuban missile crisis. But even today, hard-liners cling to the narrative that taking a tough, inflexible stance with adversaries is the path to diplomatic triumph.

That misguided interpretation hampers diplomacy today, say veterans of the perilous Cold War standoff and the historians who study it. The notion that threatening military action can force an opponent's surrender has created dangerously unrealistic expectations, they say, in high-stakes conflicts like the U.S.-led challenge of Iran's purported quest to build nuclear weapons.

Kennedy didn't stare down Khrushchev with vows to bomb Cuban missile sites, although that was the tactic pushed by his military advisors, recently revealed history of the crisis shows. The president sent his brother, then-Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, to secretly negotiate with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. In the strictest of confidence, RFK offered withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey and a promise not to invade vulnerable Cuba in exchange for the Kremlin pulling out the nuclear arms it had deployed to Fidel Castro's island.

"The secrecy that accompanied the resolution of the most dangerous crisis in foreign policy history has distorted the whole process of conflict resolution and diplomacy," said Peter Kornbluh, Cuba analyst for the National Security Archive at George Washington University. "The takeaway from the crisis was that might makes right and that you can force your opponents to back down with a strong, forceful stance."

Documents released sporadically over the last 20 years show that the crisis was resolved through compromise, not coercion, said Kornbluh, who has spent decades pushing for declassification of U.S.-Cuba history documents related to the crisis. Some 2,700 pages from RFK's private papers were released by the National Archives and Kennedy Library just last week.

R. Nicholas Burns, a 27-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service now teaching diplomacy at Harvard's Kennedy School, sees applications for the Iran dispute from the real story of the missile crisis resolution.

The fundamental breakthrough in the confrontation occurred "because Kennedy finally decided, against the wishes of most of his advisors, that rather than risk nuclear war he was going to make a compromise with Khrushchev," Burns said. He pointed to the confidential offer to remove U.S. Jupiter missiles from Europe, a turning point still "not well understood -- people think Khrushchev backed down."

In the real world, Burns said, "it is exceedingly rare that we get everything we want in an international discussion. To get something of value, you have to give up something."

Burns sees the outlines of a negotiated agreement with Iran that would prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, a plan he believes would be acceptable to Democrats and Republicans once the presidential election is over and the campaign rhetoric that rejects compromise dies down. In exchange for Iran's submitting its nuclear facilities to regular international inspections, Burns said, U.S. and other Western leaders could recognize Iran's right to enrich uranium to the levels needed in civilian arenas, such as energy production and medicine.

Lessons learned in the U.S.-led wars against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan also argue for exhausting every diplomatic option before engaging in armed conflict, Burns said.

"Sometimes it's necessary to use military force -- I'm not a pacifist," said the retired diplomat, who was an undersecretary of State for political affairs under President George W. Bush. "But more often than not, you have to put your faith in diplomacy. We have the time and space to negotiate with Iran."

Differentiating between national interests and those of allies is an even more important lesson gleaned from the missile crisis, said Robert Pastor, an American University professor of international relations and former National Security Council official in the Carter administration.

"Fidel Castro actually urged Khrushchev to attack the United States because he felt American imperialism would try to destroy both Cuba and the socialist world," said Pastor, who credits Khrushchev with wisely rejecting Castro's adventurism in favor of peace. Pastor sees a similar danger of Israel provoking war with Iran, confronting Washington with the need to decide between trying to restrain Israel or fighting a new Middle East war.

Sergei N. Khrushchev, the late premier's son who is now a U.S. citizen and international affairs analyst at Brown University, has been campaigning for a correction of the Cuban missile history at anniversary events this week.

"Khrushchev didn’t like Kennedy any more than President Obama likes [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad," he said in an interview. "But he realized you have to speak to them anyway if you want to resolve problems. We say we will never negotiate with our enemies, only with our friends. But that's not negotiating, that's having a party."

For the record, 8:35 a.m. Oct. 17: This post originally said the RFK papers made public this week were posted on the nongovernmental National Security Archive website. They were released by the National Archives and Kennedy Library.

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Photo: Caroline Kennedy, daughter of late President John F. Kennedy, shows her mother's original copy of the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to Sergei Khrushchev, son of late Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, next to a photograph of their fathers at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston at a commemoration Sunday of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. Credit: Michael Dwyer / Associated Press

 

Diplomat: Western officials see Iran's economy imploding quickly

WASHINGTON -- Western governments believe that Iran’s economy is imploding so quickly that it could essentially collapse next spring under the combined pressure of international sanctions, an oil embargo and internal mismanagement by officials in Tehran, said a European diplomat here.

Western government experts estimate that Iran will run out of foreign exchange reserves in six months to a year, making it impossible for the Islamic Republic to sell products abroad and buy the imports it needs to continue its manufacturing sector and run public services, the European diplomat said.

Western governments have steadily tightened economic sanctions on Iran this year in the hope of crippling trade and setting off an economic crisis that will force leaders in Tehran to curb or abandon a nuclear program that the West fears is aimed at building a nuclear bomb. Tehran has remained defiant, insisting it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes. Western officials believe that a full-scale balance-of-payments crisis could spark domestic unrest and threaten the regime’s survival.

The European Union this week added new sanctions on Iran’s energy, financial and natural resources sectors, moves likely to further drain Iran’s foreign currency reserves and accelerate the plunge in the value of its currency, the rial.

Iranians react to new EU sanctions over nuclear development

TEHRAN –- Soon after he learned of the new European Union sanctions on Iran, Mohammad decided to take out a large bank loan so he could place an order for zinc plates from China.

The owner of a print shop in downtown Tehran, he reasoned that the tough sanctions, which prohibit transactions between European and Iranian banks, will further devalue the rial, which has already plummeted in recent weeks. Therefore, getting a loan quickly will allow him to take advantage of the current exchange rate and prices.  

“I have placed an order… so that I don’t lose more of my purchasing power," said Mohammad, who didn’t want his last name published. This “will be gradually less painful as the purchasing power of local money noise dives."

In announcing the new round of sanctions Monday, the EU said it resulted from "serious and deepening concerns" over Iran’s nuclear development program. In addition to the restrictions placed on banks, the sanctions ban natural gas imports from Iran and will tighten control over certain exports to Iran including aluminum and steel, computer software and ship-building materials.

The measures come as Iran’s economy continues to reel in the wake of previous Western sanctions targeting the country’s crucial oil exports and access to international banking networks. Iranians are suffering economically amid inflation and the sharp devaluation of the Iranian currency against the dollar.

Shop owners in downtown Tehran said that prices had risen 50% since last month and that they were expecting things to only get worse.

Amir Mosayan, who sells watch batteries wholesale, said that immediately following the sanctions the price of his goods went up 70%.

Eutelsat Communications, one of Europe's leading satellite providers, said Monday that in light of the sanctions it would terminate its contract with IRIB, Iran's broadcast company, and immediately pulled 19 state-owned television and radio channels off the air.

IRIB deputy director Mohammad Sarafraz said Tuesday that Iran would continue airing its programs over other satellites.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the sanctions “illegal, unwise and inhuman'' but that they would not force the country to retreat from its nuclear program or affect its ability to produce nuclear energy.

His comments underscored the government’s insistence that it can ride out Western economic pressures aimed at reining in its uranium enrichment efforts that Western nations believe are aimed at developing nuclear weaponry. Iran insists its nuclear efforts are for civilian purposes only.

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EU imposes new sanctions on Iran, Syria

LONDON -- The European Union on Monday slapped tough new sanctions on Iran out of "serious and deepening concerns" over Tehran's pursuit of its nuclear program.

All transactions between European and Iranian banks are to be prohibited, except those with advance official permission or for humanitarian purposes. Imports of natural gas from Iran will be banned. The EU is also tightening control over exports to Iran of certain goods, including metals such as aluminum and steel, computer software and shipbuilding materials.

EU foreign ministers said the new restrictions were warranted because Tehran continues to block inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency from making a full assessment of Iranian nuclear facilities and capabilities.

"Iran is acting in flagrant violation of its international obligations and continues to refuse to fully cooperate with the IAEA," the EU ministers said in a joint statement. "Today's decisions [on sanctions] target Iran's nuclear and ballistic program and the revenues of the Iranian government for these programs. ... The sanctions are not aimed at the Iranian people."

The EU said it would freeze the assets of 34 companies and institutions, mostly in the energy and financial sectors, that provide support to the Tehran regime.

Iran wages its own war against drugs

HIRMAND, Iran -- The featured speaker -- an 11-year-old girl -- waited hours for the helicopter to land near the watch tower and high concrete walls in this remote region not far from the Afghanistan border. Close by, a military band  played marching music on large drums and trumpets, sounding  a discordant note in an arid desert where drug smugglers make their fortunes ferrying drugs into Iran.

The spectacle was orchestrated by the Iran government on Wednesday to showcase the success of its anti-narcotics forces in thwarting drug-smuggling into the country. 

Flanked by her mother and other relatives under a burning sun, young Zahra stood before reporters to  praise "the role of my martyred dad and his comrades in fighting narcotic traffickers."

Her father, a border agent killed three years ago, was one of more than 3,700 agents who have died in ambushes or in clashes with outlaws over the last three decades along Iran’s border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Just two nights before the event staged for the media, three more border agents were killed.

“Iran is fighting with the illicit drug traffickers on behalf of all humanity, ” said Gen. Ali Moaiyedi, chief commander of the anti-narcotic police.

Sanctions, currency chaos igniting unrest in outcast Iran

Soaring prices at Tehran's cavernous Grand Bazaar have ignited violence this week as money traders and vendors clashed with riot police over the plummeting value of the Iranian currency, which is being gutted by international sanctions and mismanagement by the Islamic regime.

What for most Iranians has been an abstract political dispute between their leaders and Western countries concerned about Tehran's nuclear ambitions has suddenly hit them in their wallets and pushed them to lash out. The rial has lost 80% of its value against the U.S. dollar in the last year, a decline accelerated by tightened U.S. and European Union sanctions now depriving the regime of half the hard currency it was earning from oil exports.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the deepening economic chaos on foreign enemies, contending there is "no economic justification" for the public scramble to dump rials in favor of dollars, euros and gold. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also struck a defiant pose, reasserting Tehran's right to enrich uranium and vowing that Iranians "will never surrender to pressure."

But Iranian exiles and scholars see the angry outbursts in the marketplace as a sign that ordinary Iranians are finally fed up with a regime that has brought them isolation, insecurity and eroding living standards. They see a population, resentful of a crackdown on dissent three years ago, now edging toward rebellion.

The unrest also demonstrates that the U.S. policy of letting sanctions and diplomacy undermine popular support for the regime is having the desired effect, confronting Tehran with its gravest challenge since Islamic clerics came to power in a  1979 revolution, the experts say.

The street value of the rial has dropped by half in the last two months and plunged 18% on Monday alone. The unofficial exchange rate for the dollar -- more than 35,000 before back-alley trading halted -- is almost three times the official rate of 12,260. But that subsidized exchange rate is available only from state banks to a limited and shrinking number of key importers.

Money traders stopped selling dollars Tuesday, confused over how to price the swiftly deteriorating rial. Some vendors closed their shops in protest of the government's failure to intervene and prop up the currency; others boosted prices beyond what many shoppers can or will pay.  

Before harsher sanctions kicked in three months ago, Iran's government had been using a sizable share of its $100-billion annual oil earnings to subsidize dollar-denominated food and consumer goods, to keep prices stable and placate the population, said Abbas Milani, a Tehran-born academic who directs Iranian studies at Stanford University.

Milani said he suspects the government was initially using the economic downturn brought on by the sanctions to put an end to the costly dollar subsidies. But he now concludes that the regime has been forced to let the rial tumble because it has run out of the hard currency needed to stop the slide.

"We're not talking about a billion dollars or 2 billion to stabilize a currency that has gone down so far. The government would have to find enormous sums of money to pour in, and if they had it they would have done it by now," Milani said.

"I don't think the regime can survive this one," he said, unless Khamenei does the unthinkable and meets Western demands that Iran cease enriching uranium beyond levels needed for civilian nuclear programs.

Tehran officials recently told the International Monetary Fund that they had $50 billion on hand, enough to see Iran through the sanctions bite for at least four or five months, Milani said. He calculates that the regime should have saved about $300 billion in a rainy-day fund over the last eight years. That no intervention in the currency crisis has been forthcoming tells him that much of the oil windfall has been squandered or siphoned off into private accounts of the Revolutionary Guards and government leaders.

"Social and political cohesion in Iran will be deeply disturbed by this economic crisis," predicted Alireza Nader, senior policy analyst on Iran for Rand Corp. "And it's not just the economic crisis -- you saw Iranians take to the streets in 2009 for a number of reasons, and those tensions have been simmering below the surface. We see them coming up now."

Nader pointed out that protesters at the bazaar this week have shouted denunciation of the regime's politics as well as soaring inflation. Shouts of "Leave Syria alone and think about us!" could be heard in clandestinely shot video footage of the angry crowds, he said.

 The Iranian government has been the sole regional supporter of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his brutal suppression of a rebellion now in its 19th month.

"Eventually this is going to put enormous pressure on the Iranian government to concede on a number of issues, not just the nuclear programs but domestic political issues as well," Nader said. "It's already gotten to the point where people's livelihoods are at stake and they're not going to tolerate that situation. We can definitely expect to see more unrest in the coming months."

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Photo: An Iranian shopper on Wednesday pays a fruit seller at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran with 50,000-rial banknotes. The sanctions-battered Iranian currency has lost 80% of its value in the last year, spurring inflation and social unrest. Credit: Abedin Taherkenareh / European Pressphoto Agency

Insert: Riot police block an approach to the Grand Bazaar on Wednesday after arresting money traders and dousing fires lighted in protest of the falling rial currency. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency

Iranian police patrol tense Tehran bazaar in wake of protests

TEHRAN -- In the wake of demonstrations in Tehran over surging prices and the plunging value of Iran's  currency, police patrolled the city's central bazaar Thursday as many shops remained shuttered in silent protest.

Tehran's massive traditional marketplace in effect was shut down Wednesday as shops closed their doors and merchants joined in angry demonstrations over their economic woes. Carpet sellers reopened their shops Thursday and tried to woo customers, but more than a third of shops still appeared to be closed, though shoppers continued to stream by.

Gold and cloth markets were closed. Some jewelry shops were open, but had failed to set up their  window displays, leaving gold wares inside their safes instead of arraying them to lure customers. The deeper that shoppers strolled into the labyrinth of the bazaar, the fewer shops were open.

“We wholesalers don’t know what to do. The cost of the raw material increases. Retailers can’t buy from us as before, because we have to increase our prices too,” said Ebrahim, a clothing wholesaler who didn't want to give his last name to foreign media. His store was shuttered most of the day.

The unusual outburst of protests Wednesday came after the latest drop in the value of the rial, which has tumbled as much as 80% in the last year as Iran has been squeezed by international economic sanctions. As Iranians have bought up foreign currency, anxious about the fate of the rial, its value has only fallen further.

Protests erupt in Iran over plunging value of currency

TEHRAN — Iranian police and demonstrators clashed Wednesday in protests linked to the plunging value of the national currency and government vows to crack down on illegal money changers.

Police fired tear gas and tried to disperse the protesters, who rallied outside the capital’s central bazaar. Many left their businesses and shuttered their shops.

“Our checks bounced, our businesses are ruined,” said a businessman who gave his name as Ali. “How shall we earn a living?”

At the center of the protests was discontent with Iran’s free-falling currency, the rial. The currency has lost as much as 80% of its value against the U.S. dollar in the last year.

Iranians are struggling with rising prices and devalued savings amid escalating, U.S.-led sanctions linked to the nation’s controversial nuclear program, which Iran says is for energy generation and other peaceful uses, not to build a weapon.

The poor and middle classes have been hit especially hard, as prices of food and other necessities have risen quickly.

Several garbage bins were set ablaze near currency trading areas in a bid to counter the tear gas fired by police.

The rapidly declining currency has prompted a rush on sales of gold and dollars as a guarantee against the dwindling value of the rial.

Iran president blames 'psychological war' for dropping rial

As the Iranian rial tumbled to new lows on Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the plummeting value of the currency on a “psychological war” waged against his government by the United States and his domestic critics.

The Tuesday news conference marked an unusually open admission by Ahmadinejad of the pain inflicted by Western sanctions, imposed to press Iran to curb its nuclear program.

The economic restrictions are “a hidden and heavy war on a global scale,” Ahmadinejad said, arguing that the West had targeted Iran's people, not its government.

The president also complained that critics such as parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani had wrongly laid the blame for the sinking rial with government mismanagement instead of “the economic war of the enemy.” He singled out Fars News Agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards and interviewed Larijani, arguing it had attacked his government for the past six months.

When “the enemy has thrown a rock on our path,” he said, “everybody needs to help throw the rock back to the enemy."

While Ahmadinejad fired back at his critics, street traders said the rial was trading Tuesday at a new low of 37,000 to the dollar, a stunning drop from just five days ago, when 26,900 rials bought a dollar. The street value is far lower than the official trading rate of 12,260 rials per dollar used by its central bank for essential goods, which most Iranians cannot access.

Iranian currency plunges to record low against the dollar

TEHRAN -- The Iranian currency plunged to a record low Monday, plummeting to a street value of 32,500 rial to the dollar, according to exchange tracking websites.

The dramatic numbers were censored and disappeared from websites minutes after they were posted Monday. Yet the news was also relayed through the semi-official Mehr News Agency, which reported the rial was trading at an only slightly better rate of 32,300 to the dollar.

The newest numbers revealed a stunning drop in just a few days: The rial had been selling for 26,900 per dollar on the Tehran black market as of Thursday. But the trend is nothing new. Over the past nine months, the rial has tumbled more than 70% in value, driving up inflation and making food more costly.

The plunge is another sign of the economic unease in Iran as it grapples with economic sanctions that have tightened in the past year. Western powers, unconvinced by Iranian insistence that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, have ratcheted up pressure to try to curb its uranium enrichment efforts.

The unease has apparently spurred Iranians to buy up dollars and other foreign currency. Though the Iranian central bank sets an official trading rate of 12,260 rials to the dollar, the street value of the rial is far lower.

As Iranians continued to be pinched financially, the economic strain could have political repercussions. A recent Israeli Foreign Ministry report, reported by Haaretz, found Iranians blamed their government for the surging cost of bread, meat and electricity caused by Western sanctions.

“As long as there is no reconciliation with the U.S. administration and sanctions prevail, the devaluation of the rial will continue,”  said Asghar, a 40-year-old who owns a currency exchange shop south of the British Embassy in Tehran.  

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Photo: An Iranian woman displays a new 50,000 rial banknote released by the Central Bank of Iran in Tehran on March 12, 2007. Credit: Hasan Sarbakhshian / Associated Press